Farting About

Weaving Ghosts at An Lanntair

According to the Oxford English Dictionary ‘farting about’ seems the best way to describe the current post-exhibition phase of my work cycle. It’s always hard getting back into it when I have been away from the studio for a few weeks.

It wasn’t possible to be at An Lanntair in Stornoway to set up Weaving Ghosts so I was keen to go and see if my written instructions had enabled Roddy Murray and the gallery staff at An Lanntair to install it as I wanted. Barring problems to do with lighting (which meant the shadows on The Ossuary were not as intended) and the very high ceilings that prevented the installation of Hoose, (hopefully I will get another chance to install it somewhere else) the exhibition looked good in the space. I was particularly happy with North Atlantic Drift because the spacing between the individual baskets was perfect (not easy with 70 plus baskets all different shapes and sizes), so my thanks to Roddy Murray for that.

North Atlantic Drift and There Were 15 To Feed At Midbrake 

The 8 schools workshops for children aged between 5 and 13 were full on but I had very generous help from two members of the Scottish Basketmakers Circle, Dawn Susan and Angela Price along with JJ plus staff from the schools and An Lanntair, for which I am very grateful. Thanks are particularly owing to Moira for her organisation and communication skills and to Joe for his knowledgeable and willing practical aid. A gallery talk and an interview on BBC Radio Scotland were also packed into 4 days.

Unravelling with Joe!

Exhibitions are really important for me, without them I don’t do much in the studio. I love the whole process involved in creating, curating and organising an exhibition, but this post-exhibition phase is always the hardest bit.

Weaving Ghosts has had 5 showings so far (2 Scotland and 3 Norway) and there is at least one more venue planned in England but not until next year, so at the moment I am trying to find more galleries to fill the gap or continue the tour, but it’s a pretty thankless task.

On the evidence of my experience the only way to get venues to give you a show is if you actually know someone who works there, or have some link to the venue. Sending unsolicited proposals has seldom been successful for me. It doesn’t take much to just acknowledge receipt of a proposal but it’s obviously too much effort for a lot of the people responsible for planning exhibitions. Many of the bigger and better known galleries also specifically say that they do not accept unsolicited submissions so unless you know someone working there you haven’t a hope in hell. Smaller regional museums and Art Centres in Britain are easier to get a show in than the big galleries, so that is where I concentrate my efforts though even with them it’s also often hard to get a response. Just a ‘thank you’ would do. So far I have sent out 4 detailed proposals tailored to individual venues in the last couple of months and not had a single response. I am an artist, not a salesperson, so I am not going to cold call or doorstep people, I try to find a more sympathetic way of doing things, but even after 30 plus years at it I still don’t really know what is the right way to get results!

Meanwhile I have plenty more ideas I want to explore for Weaving Ghosts but without a confirmed date for its next showing I am finding it difficult to focus so today have spent my studio time flitting from one thing to the next.

 

Here is a typical unfocused day in the studio…..ironing some plastic lids, I really like the resulting flat brightly coloured disks with the vestiges of their ribbed edges and screw mechanism. Making willow frames for the planned Southport Boat Basket. No kinks today, possibly because I had soaked the white willow for much longer and had altered the former I made with some concave shaping on the corners and an inner tube to cushion it. Cutting up heavy duty polyethylene bottles, possibly for the SBB but not sure and cutting up inner tube for tying the frames. Playing with gladioli leaves to see if I can remember how to start a continuous, non-stitched, coiled, plait, like the one Carlos Fontales briefly showed me how to do with esparto. Gave up after a while, as it wasn’t working and was just making me cross. In principle it seems very simple, I am just having difficulty with the rhythm of it and the hand positioning at the moment.

Took some photos of work in progress on the Southport, responded to some emails and social media, edited the Weaving Ghosts proposal for galleries and looked on line for some regional museums. Sorted some willows and put them to soak in the pond. Started writing this blog post. Shaved some skeins of willow, for the SBB, and watched an astonishing amount of large hailstones come out of the sky and cover the ground outside the studio in a few seconds. 

I hope this phase doesn’t go on too long, because it feels a bit tedious and uncreative, but I know it’s the only way I am going to get back into it, it’s essential to be in the studio just ‘farting about’.

A Day Lasts Only a Few Hours.....

A day lasts only a few hours, at this time of year, or so it seems to me. In truth, of course, they are expanding, the shortest day has been and gone  but the daylight seems to only stretch slowly forward into  the evenings, not back into the night  where I need it to go. How can I go to the studio in the morning in the dark? My body is reluctant to stir. The outdoor cold shower (yes, I know it's crazy but it works for me)  helps to get me into the day quickly. It warms my body instantly and stops me yawning but only if I do it straight from a warm bed. If I hesitate and stagger about in clothing before the shower it is much harder to strip off again.

In the autumn I can hear an animal settling into hibernation in the roof above the bed, it moves about for a few weeks at dusk, presumably making up its bed, then all goes silent and it won't stir again for a couple of months. I could happily do the same but I have an exhibition to work towards.
Perhaps I was stupid to accept these dates for a major exhibition but it never occurred to me to think about the effect of the planetary movements on my ability to work.

Another thing I failed to think about was photography. I have always taken my own photos, initially the motivation was to avoid the expense of paying someone else, but quickly I learnt that it was important to photograph my work in the way that I wanted it to be seen. In 'Crafty Containers' the publisher did all the photography and hung my baskets, made of urban waste, in trees at jaunty angles or filled them with plants that hid the baskets. The photos could not have been more inappropriate but I had surrendered control and got what I deserved I suppose. It was a tough lesson.  If I can help it I  don't  use flash photography, but at this time of year the light is so bad it is almost impossible to take good photos of work indoors. From past experience I know I need good photos of the work before the exhibition opens so I will just have to find a way to do it.

Unpicking 'Poesie'

With roughly nine weeks left for me to finish new work prior to the opening of Weaving Ghosts the pressure is starting to mount.  Nine weeks that inevitably has to include Christmas and New Year celebrations.  It is true that I am no fan of Christmas, mainly because it seems to start at the beginning of November and just gets worse until Epiphany and the 'sudden and miraculous realisation' that it is, at last, all over!

Creative pressure, however,   is not like other kinds of pressure for me. It seems to be a positive force.  The nearer the deadline gets the more I start undoing things that are already almost completed. This would appear to be counterproductive behaviour but, often, it is because I have finally realised that there is a better way to use that material or technique and the remake, if that is what it can be called, usually happens very quickly. Since March this year I have spent many hours making things that I am now unpicking,  it's a bit of a kamikaze tactic because there is no time left to do it a second time so this time it will have to work. But, I am a fatalist and think that if my instinct is telling me to undo something then that is what I should do.

The piece that I am most excited about at the moment is something that came together relatively quickly and won't need a remake. But, on reflection, I realise that I have actually been working on the idea for several years and it just didn't manifest itself as a piece of work until now. When something excites me it takes over and I can work very quickly and put in long hours without noticing I am doing so.   It is almost as though the speed at which a piece comes together physically is an indication of how successful it will be for me. It doesn't matter if it is a first make or a remake, if it happens quickly it seems to work. That said, I still need to put the hours into making things that get unpicked because without making nothing happens, the ideas come out of the making process, however tedious that may be at times.

An obvious work ethic in art  seems to suck the vitality out of it for me, so I deliberately try to make my work look as though it came together without effort, but this can be counterproductive in terms of selling work.  Appreciating  the manifest gestures of labour in a piece of work is one easy way for the viewer to understand it and its price tag (if it is for sale). There are many contemporary basket makers who use a very obvious visible gesture in a piece to demonstrate that they have put painstaking hours into their work, which in turn will help to justify what appears to be a high price. But often they do it at the expense of what, in French, is referred to as 'poesie' and the work takes on a moribund character becoming nothing more than a demonstration of skill. Its' a trap I try to avoid, so more unpicking awaits....

New Web Site

At last...... the new web site is up.  It has taken me months but, I have learnt a huge amount.

The old web site was designed by my brother Robert Walpole,  when he was just starting out. Now he does exciting (for him!) work with meta data and open source. Next week he will be presenting a paper at a conference in Washington DC about some ground breaking work he did at the National Archives and I am really pleased for him.  He also pushed me  to take on the task of creating the new site  myself and I am glad he did, though, in practice, it was very difficult for me to  find the time to  learn HTML.  What time I have,  I want to use in my studio. So, last year I contacted Will Palmer who worked on the Scottish Basketmakers Circle  site and had just set up his own consultancy and asked him if he would be interested in taking  it on. It was important for  me to support someone early on in their career. Happily, for me, he agreed. I knew how I wanted it to look and that I wanted it to be a thorough archive of my work, but also  something I could  manage  myself. So Will set up the structure and taught me how to work with it. His instructions were very clear and have enabled me to have the web site  I was seeking.  A lot of people  say creating web sites is a 5 minute job, but don't believe them if you want anything more than 3 pictures!  It was very hard work  going through all the photos, press cuttings and catalogues. Putting in all that information accurately was, for me, very tedious  because I had to work so methodically and systematically and at times it just felt like punishment  but, thankfully, it is now done!
I am very grateful to Will for his patience and can recommend him to anyone who would like to create their own site but needs technical support to do it.

Please let us know what you think of it.

Ghostly Communications

This week has been entertaining....... last  Friday, and completely by chance, we learned that the proposals JJ Ignatius Brennan and I  submitted in March for two large outdoor installations were selected at the time for an exhibition that opens next week.... but no one thought to tell us! Even with a supreme effort  it just isn't possible now.  The director of the organisation hosting the exhibition has, however,  apologised to us for the curators failing to let us know or answering our emails! Hopefully we will get another opportunity to create the pieces.

By contrast, yesterday, I got the good news that 'Weaving Ghosts' is being invited  to Norway in June 2016  for 2 months, which I am very happy about.

In the studio working towards 'Weaving Ghosts' I have been having fun teaching myself to make fishing nets.  I am using instructions in the wonderful 5 volume series 'Golden Hands' published by Marshall Cavendish that my mother bought in the1970's. It's a gem of a period piece with lots of  macrame bags and flower power, but the techniques are as clear as they ever were.

Effort - Less is More

2007 willow and plastic lids

Sometimes, I just have to accept that it isn't going to work  in the way that I hope it will  and a whole weeks work has to be abandoned. That happened last Friday and the minute I made that decision and started something else it all flowed smoothly again.

Next year there will be some exhibitions of my work in Australia and in order to keep the shipping charges as low as possible we are not sending pieces with willow bark.  They necessitate fumigation and all sorts of other noxious processes to avoid the immigration into Australia of  rogue insects or diseases. But, the organisers of the exhibitions particularly liked  a couple of the pieces in brown willow with plastic lids (see picture above)  so I offered to try doing something similar but using white willow. I wasn't intending to reproduce the pieces, just to do something in the same vein. But, what I discovered  was that my original choice of brown willow  had been the best choice and that white willow didn't perform in the same way. It was much harder to prevent it kinking and the dark lines of the original brown willow looked better than the white. White might have worked on a dark surface but then there wouldn't be any of the graphic shadows and few galleries have dark walls and plinths. These problems were compounded by not having the right sort of wire, it was a bit too stiff and difficult to control and as I don't buy materials  that was that. I remade the same things four times in different ways but it just didn't work. The lids,  however, are still lovely and will be used for something else.

Fighting with my materials has never been my modus operandi, it always seems to show and  the work looks as tense as I feel doing it. I want my work to look as though it has been effortless to make  even though I might have spent many hours on it. It's  an economically  counterproductive way of working because if  it looks effortless potential customers can't appreciate the work that has gone into it and therefore think the price I am asking is unjustified. 

The balance between perceived and actual invested value, i.e time,  is an interesting one. I was once approached by an American gallery who wanted me to make a 'basketry teapot' for a show they were putting on. It had to be teapot sized (cheap to ship) though it didn't need to function as one and with as much labour in it as possible to justify an expensive price tag. I didn't take up the invitation because not only did I find the idea of a basket teapot horrible,  but, also because  it seemed such a stupid  idea to deliberately put as much labour as possible into a piece, when you could do something good much more simply.

Now I understand  that there is a whole commercial craft market that operates out of galleries in high overhead locations that work on this principle. Because these galleries are often quite small they can't show big works but they can get a lot of financial value on plinths by showing small one-off works with phenomenal amounts of labour built into them. It's not the amount of labour I find difficult to deal with, but the fact that it exists for one purpose only, and that is to make the item more expensive. It's almost as if it doesn't seem to  matter if the basketry teapot is a gross and pointless object as long as a customer can be convinced that they are buying a lot of someone elses skill, time and effort at a good price.

Ironically the production market works the other way. When we ran our own basket production company the buyers from stores constantly pushed us to lower our prices, but the only way we could do that was to take the labour out of the product. So for ten years  I designed the labour out of our baskets and in the end our baskets had very little weaving left in them.

These experiences have brought me to a place where, although  I believe Mies van der Rohes precept for minimalist design that "less is more", I  find I still have to show some  evidence of my labour in my work for people to like it enough to want to buy it. Its' a weird  place to be in and quite challenging.

This week I am having fun with  a sack full of corks, it may work, it may not, but at the moment I am optimistic that I will be able to strike the balance between evident effort and effortlessness!

Retroscope in Progress

Work is progressing on the Retroscope.  Just one more of these, the tripod and Marguerite d'Angoulemes accoutrements to make......The opening of Traditions Futuristes is Saturday 14th June at 18.30 at the Maison du Patrimoine, Tusson, 16140 Charente. Everyone welcome.

Traditions Futuristes

For reasons too tedious to describe, we ( myself and  JJ Ignatius Brennan)  find ourselves making a large new joint work for Traditions Futuristes an exhibition that opens on the 14th June. The details are in the side panel. We will have had 3 weeks to design and make the work. Its always quite exciting when these things happen. One minute work is progressing at a leisurely pace on some distant project, and the next you are in hyperdrive frantically trying to meet a deadline for something you haven't really had any time to think about, at all. But, as I have said before, it is often in these circumstances that the ideas appear easily and with great clarity, which is what happened in this instance.

I don't want to say too much about what it is, at the moment, but it  will be quite big, about 3 by 4 metres made of lime twigs, willow, wood  and wire and is called Retroscope. The picture provides hints.

Speak Up!

The Art Workers Guild with the portrait of Thomas Okey to the right of the door.

Speaking publicly about my work is not easy but I really enjoy the challenge.  Last week I gave a talk, to students, staff and prospective students at Brighton University and to members of the Art Workers Guild in London.

Giving two talks back to back was daunting  because  they were two very different audiences but, in the end it worked out well. I kept to the time limit, there was only one technical glitch and no-one shouted ‘speak up’!

The invitation to Brighton was from Margaret Huber and Graham Rawle, the super duo of the Sequential Design and Illustration department and  my thanks go to them. I have spoken there quite a few times before so it feels cosy  and the audience gave me a warm reception.

The Art Workers Guild building I am also very familiar with because it is the same one in which  the Basketmakers Association AGM is held.  The audience was, however, quite different, as the Guild Members are all renowned experts in their own art, architecture or craft fields. My invitation from  Prue Cooper, the current Master and witty ceramicist, to speak to them this year was because 2014  is the Centenary of Thomas Okeys’ year as Master of the Art Workers Guild.

Illustration from "The Art of Basket-Making"

As many of you reading this will know, Thomas Okey (1852-1935) was, also a basket maker.   Born in the East End of London into a basket making family he worked in the family business for 30 years. He taught himself  Italian, French and German from books  before starting work at 6 am and by going to evening classes at the end of the day.  He developed a passion for the Italian language and culture in particular and translated and authored many books on the subject, going on to become, a Fellow at Cambridge despite no formal qualifications He also wrote one the best instructional books about willow basket making An Introduction to The Art of Basket-Making published in either 1912 or 1932 depending on which source you read ( I have a copy marked 1st edition which says 1932). So, having been born 100 years and one week later than Thomas, lived and made baskets in the east end for 30 years,  written books on basket making,  gone back to university late in life and struggled (I think he was a natural) to learn foreign languages. I actually feel a sort of kindred spirit with him.  It was, therefore an honour for me to speak in the same place that he had been Master. It also seems a strange coincidence that David Drew, probably Britains best willow basket maker, also a Libran, has exactly the same birthday as Thomas Okey. Are there many other basket makers out there who are Librans?

For these occasions my talk is autobiographical. It is, after all, what I know best and  it is what I want to hear when I go to talks given by other people. I want to know how and why they became what they are. Grayson Perry and Paul Smith are two people who do this and they are probably the two speakers I have enjoyed the most, so I try to follow their example. As an artist it is impossible to separate my life from my art, I will die on the job, it isn’t something I can retire from. So, I cannot talk about my work without talking about the circumstances of my life that have often been the catalyst for changes in my work.

I work hard at my talks, so it is rewarding when it pays off, as it did on these two occasions.  I knew it was going particularly well at the Art Workers, when I became aware that almost everyone in the room was looking at me, very still and silent, but sitting very upright and alert, craning their necks just a little bit. I hope no-one in the audience that night will be offended when I say it was almost as though their ears had pricked up! It was an unforgettable sensation, one that I imagine many actors experience and one that I will now always have to try to make happen.

Satellites

Satellites  in the studio

As promised in a previous post here is the finished hexagonal plaited piece. It is now installed in the group show (detailed in the side panel) at PEMA in Nontron in the Dordogne where it will be on show until the 3rd of November.

Not really a single piece, in fact it is 21 separate baskets and 4 balls.

For some  time  I have been making big pieces that pack small by designing them so that they can stack inside each other and be unpacked to make one big piece. It all started when I made a very large basket in my home/studio in London and then discovered that it wouldn’t go down the stairs or out of the front door. In the end it had to be lowered out of a first floor window. Over time the reasons for trying to achieve the ultimate in small parcels and big works have crystallised a bit further. It isn’t just practicality, it is also about having as light a footprint as possible. It seems illogical and rather stupid to make work that is as sustainable as it can be and then to use lots of resources, crates, packaging, special carriers, energy and money to ship it to an exhibition. So, I try now to design portability into the pieces wherever I can and whenever I have control over things I try to make sure they are shipped by the cheapest method possible, which is usually the post or in my car. Using these criteria this is possibly the most successful piece so far because the three nesting sets of baskets pack into a very small box.

Making  functional baskets that are sculptural is an important part of what I do with my work. As I have said before, making work that is just sculpture is something I often don’t find as challenging or as interesting to do as trying to make it also functional. But occasionally  I don’t succeed, because the visual and sculptural tend to take over, perhaps because  it’s the bit I enjoy most. And with some commissions  the purpose of the piece is just for it to be sculptural.  The 21 baskets are perfectly functional but can be arranged in many different ways horizontally, vertically, free standing, stacked or hung - if all you want to do is look at them!

It's called Satellites.

Log Baskets

Log Basket II    2013

A basket that I originally made in 2011 has recently been re-worked. I used to think re-working things should never be necessary, now I accept that I don’t always get it right first time, usually because of a lack of time.

If I finish a piece just before the opening of an exhibition I sometimes don’t have enough time to really look at it to establish whether there is anything that needs adjusting. Obviously, if I made sure everything was finished weeks ahead that would not be problem, but I find that some of the best ideas come when I am under serious pressure because of a deadline.  I don’t want to cut out that source of inspiration. When this particular piece came back from the exhibition it was made for, I realised there were some things about it that I wasn’t happy with.

It is a handbag/basket made of two flat circles of cut and assembled oak and ash discs  joined together with  a ‘gusset’ made of little strips of wood. It was really difficult to join the three parts together, physically awkward, and as a consequence it seemed to have a slight twist in the form that I had not intended. Because it didn’t sit well I then added two feet on the base but I really wanted it to be a clean circle without the feet. 

Original version

It also seemed to me that visually it lacked something and usually that ‘something’ for me is a third element or material. Perhaps it’s to do with odd numbers? The original was just wood and copper wire and I realised that what I really wanted to add was coloured plastic. The mix of natural materials and brightly coloured plastic excites me.

My somewhat unconventional technique for judging whether a piece is visually interesting or not is to imagine I am ill in bed and cannot move much. The only thing I have to look at is this piece, for hours, days or maybe weeks.  If I think that I will keep finding new things in it for my eye to rest on and my thoughts to explore  then the piece works for me.

Reworking this piece involved  experimentation with lots of different bits of coloured plastic. In the end, some of the mysterious little plastic wheels that I found on a beach last year were used, along with some strips of plastic cut from detergent bottles, to fill in some of the bigger gaps between the discs.

The sides were completely re-done, far more precisely and without overlaps, and the piece now sits well without feet.  I am much happier with it now and have sent it off today. It will be on show with the work of  other Yeomen of the Worhipful Company of Basketmakers' alongside the Company's own collection of baskets. It will be at the Guildhall Library in the City of London and the details are in the side panel.

Exhibitionist

There are two things that make me want to spend 24 hours in my studio, one is the desire to experiment with a particular material or technique and the other is the prospect of an exhibition. Of the two, I think the latter is the more powerful motivator, perhaps that makes me an exhibitionist?

Money has never really motivated  me to work, though occasionally selling something can.  But selling, I have found,  has its negative aspects in terms of creative autonomy and,  if it involves middlemen/women  they invariably  make more money out of your work than you do.  It also impacts on how viewers perceive and value your work, (I will come back to this another day).

Trusting that life will bring what you need when you need it has, therefore, been my guiding principle for dealing with the uncertainty of never knowing when or where the next opportunity to exhibit or teach  and, possibly earn some money,  will come from. Very occasionally  I feel this philosophy is failing me but then, out of the blue and usually from a totally unexpected source, comes an invitation to participate in something or other.

At the moment I am working on pieces for two exhibitions (see side panel), neither of which were anticipated and there are not enough hours in the day. I want to spend all day in the studio but there is a house and its garden that also demand  some engagement on my part. Now it’s  plums that need stoning and drying whilst the sun shines. Housework is basic at these times and the spiders are content that I have a deadline to work to and they are happily creating delicate lacey multi-storey palaces in every corner of the house.

Sometimes the collected and donated materials in my studio build up to a point where I know I will not ever use them all and some discriminatory clearance has to be done. This can be a good way to discover what I want to use so, for the current work,  I have employed this tactic.  It’s hard for me to throw out materials  but knowing that I can take them somewhere to be recycled in other ways makes it tolerable. This time I disposed all of the bits of dead computers and cameras that I take to bits just because I am curious to know what is inside. Consequently I now know a lot about the trickery that goes on inside these things, for example the £300 computer that has its vital connections held together with rapidly deteriorating sellotape.  I also got rid of  some  things  that I didn’t really love because, although it is sometimes possible to transform them into something that  I do love by really working hard at the relationship, it is much easier to start with something that immediately attracts me… a bit like people really!

During this clearout I came across a large roll of white polypropylene tape that I acquired in about 1988. Its time has come now and I decided  that I either had to use it or bin it.  I couldn’t see it being used well once it had been deposited at the rubbish dump, there is a lot of it and in mint condition, so I felt obliged to try and honour it by using it to make a big piece. I have taught a lot of people how to do hexagonal plaiting with this tape, because it is a perfect combination of material and technique, but I have never really exploited this mix myself. So, having been reminded of its possibilities by Susanne Whittingham, who was in my class in Denmark and is a master of this material and all plaiting techniques, I  decided to work with it, but I am mixing it with other materials. I am not going to show you what I am making until I have finished, but the picture at the top is a hint. It will be a large modular piece, either free standing or wall mounted, and it will  pack up into a very small flat parcel! It won’t use all the white tape but the sack of coloured tape will be almost empty when I have finished.

As there is only  a month  until the exhibition opens  I am off.

Looped and Found

Collaborations between potters and basket makers seem to be quite popular at the moment. Last year I participated in  Duos Potiers Vanniers and this year Nathalie Du Bernard of Poterie des Chals invited me to partner her  in Osier la Terre an open submission exhibition which is now on at the Ecomusee de Bresse until the 30 Septemeber.

Because I was in Shetland at the time when we needed to be working on the project it wasn’t  really feasible. But, when I went to Roussillon to teach in March, Nathalie showed me a large terracotta head, that she had made, and asked me if I would like to work on it. She was hoping that we might be able to squeeze our joint effort into the exhibition at the last moment, but the opening was very close and we had to get the very heavy head from Isere in east France to west France for me to work on. Nathalie had relatives returning from their easter break in the Alps who were cajoled into squeezing it into the boot of their car and I made a trip to Poitiers to fetch it from them. Despite our best efforts the opening of the exhibition came and went but once I finished the work it went back to Isere, this time with the assistance of a potter, Patrick Rollet, who was attending a pottery market in the Dordogne.

Nathalie assured me he would be amenable to this idea but when I arrived at his stand at the fair with the one metre high scaffolded head he seemed less keen, but graciously allowed me to leave it with him! I have heard nothing since….. Whether it will ever been seen publicly is still all a mystery to me.

When I first saw Nathalies piece, in the very special and ancient pottery that she works in, the idea for my contribution came almost immediately. I wanted to do  something that was about thoughts and memories of ancient pots.  I wanted to use a mix of materials  to create something that was extremely light in appearance as a contrast to the physical weight of the terracotta. Looping offered the lightness and could also suggest pathways of neurones and I still had a sack full of used green wire, given to me by the electrician next door, to loop with.

Whilst gardening  I often dig up little pieces of old earthenware. Over time I have collected these fragments on my windowsills and now this project seemed to present the perfect opportunity to make use of them. I enclosed each piece in a looped structure of fine copper wire and subsequently they were incorporated into the vase-shaped form that grew out of the head.

I have previously discussed the phenomena that I have called ‘the law of material sufficiency’  it happened again and when I had finished this piece the sack of green wire was empty, I had needed no more, or no less.

El Costurero de Aracne

Last August I was invited to participate in a project organised by Angel Sanz Montero of the Department of Art Textiles at the University of Granada. The brief was to make 40 'identical' works that would become part of the 6^th edition of El Costurero de Aracne which translates as Arachne's Sewing Box. 

Arachne was, according to Ovid a superb, but mortal, weaver in Greco Roman mythology who picked an argument with the goddess Athena. Being, among other things, the goddess of weaving, Athena wasn’t too impressed when Arachne boasted that she was a much better weaver than the goddess. A mega spat ensued and Athena used her superpowers to morph Arachne into a spider! The tale, it is suggested, explains why spiders aren’t bad at weaving either. 

The brief didn't mention any of this, it just said the works should be of a textile character that measured no more than 3x3x2,5cms!!!  Que horror!  Anyone who is familiar with my work knows that  I do not normally do small, let alone miniature. I like to make sculptural objects that occupy some space. Also, as a consequence of handling a lot of wire, my finger tips have become quite desensitised which makes working on a miniature scale difficult. However, even with only the promise of receiving a copy of the final work as recompense I decided to take on the challenge and today my copy of El Costurero de Aracne VI arrived in the post.

I was determined that I would make a basket and that it should use recycled materials and not be too labour intensive as I had to make 40 of them. In the end, after considerable experimentation, I decided to make small frame baskets. I used plastic bottle tops to give me a standard size for a circular frame that would not exceed the limitations. I then cut rings off the plastic lids and looped telephone wire onto these rings making small hemispherical baskets. Once I had the formula it didn’t take too long and I just made a few a day in between other jobs. The colours are different but technically the baskets are identical.

At the time of designing the baskets and whilst I was making them, I had not looked up the myth of Arachne so I hadn’t consciously considered making any references to the myth. I was too busy worrying about what I could possibly do on such a tiny scale! So, it was a pleasant surprise  when I had finished them and laid them out to photograph to see that I had made 40 little spiders webs. This phenomena is happening so frequently to me now when I am making that I am beginning to lose all sense of what is a conscious thought and what is not.....

In total 15 artists took part and each little box has 15 compartments containing a miniature art work. There is also a DVD with details about the works and the participating artists. It was produced in an edition of 50 examples so the other 35 boxes will go to other places and people. Tomorrow at 11.00  El Costurero de Aracne VI is being publicly presented at the University of Granada.

More Woven Home

Back in July I wrote about some of the things I had been making for my own home and mentioned I was working on a log basket - it is now finished.

The log basket that we were using  I made in traditional fashion, some years ago, with home grown willow. It didn’t however start life as a log basket, as it was made for taking washing out to the line. Since then a narrower door is used to take the washing outside. This basket was too wide to get through the door without tipping  it sideways and sometimes the clean washing fell out ... not a good way to start the day!

It was then  requisitioned  as a log basket but because it was originally meant for washing I hadn't rapped the weaving tightly and  little bits of wood and bark sifted themselves through the gaps and onto the floor. Consequently every time  the basket was moved it uncovered a pile of sawdust on the floor.  To deal with this I had made a highly engineered cardboard insert for the basket!

Perhaps you are getting the message from this, and from previous  posts, that, for me, good design is about making the daily tasks in life easier and more enjoyable and not about making  more housework.

So the new log basket had to deal with the sawdust problem, but I also wanted it to look more interesting and colourful than the brown willow one. I will have to look at it every day and brown makes me feel serious, it doesn’t really cheer me up.  If I am lighting the stove it is because I am cold and I need cheering up. The shape needed to be similar to the willow one, low and wide in order to relate to the shelves above it, but also to make it easy to see the choice of logs inside. It also needed to be fairly sturdy, though not too  hefty, as all it does is contain the logs.

In my stock of collected materials I found a pile of pressed card beer carriers. They came around bottles of German beer and are strong enough to hold and carry 3 litres of beer in glass bottles. I haven’t used them for anything before, which presented me with an interesting challenge, and the bright yellow design seemed ideal for the kitchen. But the carriers when opened up were not very big, so for plaiting they would have to be joined. I experimented with different ways of joining the strips and in the end decided that stapling would be efficient and quick. It seemed more honest to use staples than glue. The strips were cut quickly with a paper cutter,  stapled into long lengths and then plaited into a square based basket. Various decisions had to be made about how to staple the strips together, in terms of the design on the card, and then about what order to weave them in. I also considered which way to staple the strips so that the overlap could be pulled through the weaving. I only tell you this because you would not know about these things just by looking at the finished piece! A layer of black strapping tape was then woven in on top of the strips adding protection for the card and making the pattern more defined.

Some time ago I developed a way of using bunched willow for borders on plaited baskets. I decided to employ this technique again because it works really well and you don't have to soak the willow (always a bonus in my book). The woven card  basket, when it is only cut and stitched at the top edge, is still quite floppy but once the willow is attached it becomes tensioned and strong.  It seems as though you will never get the two ends to meet in anything other than a pointed leaf shape, but when they finally do, it forms  into a perfect ring and the basket becomes very solid. The process is a bit magical and I always enjoy doing it.

That left the handles and feet to resolve. The handles were made with  two pieces of electric cable with  the outer casing stripped off the ends of the wires.  These were then threaded  through the border to attach them. I decided that feet were necessary to protect the base of the basket from the tiled floor and  used black plastic lids from coffee jars that had been given to me. I riveted these on to the base, one in each corner and one in the middle. I could have stitched them on but that will be the back up if, for any reason, the rivets fail.

When I put the basket in place and took a photo I was quite shocked to realise that my choice of technique and colour scheme had not been my decision at all. It had, in fact, been decided for me by the Scottie dog and the Mexican tiger that have stood  on the shelves above the log basket for several years!